The newly opened $6.5 million, 300-bed emergency homeless shelter in Wai'anae will not only bring much-needed relief to those in need on the Leeward Coast, it also offers some lessons for similar operations elsewhere.

Indeed, it was gaps in the Next Step shelter that helped create the better model in Wai'anae, according to Laura Thielen, the former director of the Next Step shelter.

The Wai'anae shelter is the first 24-hour facility in the state for both families and individuals that also provides on-site comprehensive social services and a place to stay until more permanent housing can be found.

Run by U.S. Vets Hawai'i, the shelter offers a highly structured program providing daytime services for individuals and families, in partnership with agencies that target children and Native Hawaiians. The shelter has a large common area, and is big enough so that families and individuals have separate living areas.

By comparison, the Next Step shelter has fewer programs and services, and is limited by both its space and its lease agreement, which allows the shelter to be open only at night between 5 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. That means shelter users must be referred to the Waikiki Health Clinic on the other side of town for social services.

Still, Next Step has served an estimated 300 adults and 100 children since it opened in May 2006, underscoring the need for additional shelters elsewhere in the urban core.

With a proposal to keep the Next Step shelter open for another four years, the timing is right to examine key changes that would enable expanding its role to a 24-hour model with on-site social services programs.

But that, too, would only be a temporary fix. The Kaka'ako site is set to become an Office of Hawaiian Affairs center in 2008. The state must begin planning now to find new sites in the urban core that can serve as 24-hour facilities.

Considering the sheer number of people forced to live on our streets and beaches, clearly there's no time to waste.